Handsome, not Fair
I remember barely a couple of months ago when Fair and Handsome made its controversial debut on billboards and televisions around the country. I know many people who thought the product was absolutely nonsensical, many couldn't imagine a man going to a shop and asking for a tube. Fair and Handsome was the new condom, people couldn't imagine anyone going to a shop and asking for it. I was actually one of those people. Although I do not contest the existing demand for Fair and Handsome, I still can't imagine most of my male friends going to a shop to buy the product.
Then today, during a commercial break in the ODI, I noticed some subtle changes to the Fair and Handsome ad. 'Fair', save its appearance on the pack and one mention by voiceover at the end, is entirely missing from the rest of the ad. The emphasis has shifted from Fair to Handsome. So now the condescending male friend asks, "Mard ho kar ladkiyo wali cream?" Earlier, the dialogue was, "Mard ho kar ladkiyo wali fairness cream?" Even as a bevy of young women twitter around Mr. Man With The Tube, the voiceover only emphasizes the ability of the cream to make its user handsome, NOT fair.
So what's up with the omission of 'Fair' from the campaign?
Fairness creams for women have raked up a huge storm earlier with their banality and insistence that fairer women are more intelligent/better wives/more talented/more popular/etc. They're infuriating enough as they are, more so as they only go to hammer reaffirmation into the nation's psyche that fair is good, dark is bad. Instead of moving forward, we pull ourselves back with idiocy like this. However, ofcourse, if anyone wishes to be fairer, for whatever reason, it is no crime.
The Indian 'Skin-lightening industry' is valued at $190m and before the advent of 'Fair and Handsome' targetted only women. Both sexes feel the need to look better, one doesn't trump the other. With Emami quoting that a staggering (and slightly unbelievable) 29% of Indian men use skin-lightening products, it is evident that fair is now equated with 'good looking' for both sexes. But if this is so obviously the case, then why the sudden and thorough omission of 'fair' from the 'Fair and Handsome' ad?
What I get from all this is that 'fair' and 'lovely' remain markedly feminine adjectives, while 'tall', 'dark', 'handsome' are considered the ideal all-male qualities. In reality, a woman would as soon like to be called 'Dark and Handsome' as a man would like being called 'Fair and Lovely'. Fair skin might be preferred by both, but apparently it's still not acceptable for men to want/say it. So Emami can go right ahead and capture a large untapped market, so long as they remember not to mix their adjectives up, because 'Handsome', they will; 'Fair', they won't.
This entry was posted
on 28.3.06 at 3:33 PM.
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i completly support ur aticle...
i think launching such produts is unjust to the "not fair" people...this is modern day apartheid to earn money...
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